


dim your lights (I can see you for miles)

by cicak



Series: Lesbian Han Solo [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Capes are always fashionable, F/F, How to be a galactic princess when you've got crippling self-issue problems, Lesbian Han Solo, Post-Return of the Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Weddings, only loosely canon compliant, princess problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 21:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10648122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicak/pseuds/cicak
Summary: “As the spouse of a senator, Han, it really should be you who is running the Princess’ household and making important social connections, rather than just lying around leaving rude messages on Master Luke’s comm while I do everything”, Threepio said, aggressively dusting around Han’s boots.“It may surprise you, Threepio” Han growls, “But her highness and I are neither legally nor illegally married. She just keeps me around because I’m pretty."In which Han Solo is a war hero, gets the girl, becomes a princess, and tries to work out what to do next.





	dim your lights (I can see you for miles)

Han has never known a time without war. Not just the current war, although that had woven through, by turns cold and hot, a counterpoint to a burning hearth. Han survived the ugly pressure bomb that decimated her parents’ house, the nastiness that wore away everything until it became just her mother’s house, cold and empty, and then the credit house took it back, once even the last sticks of furniture, Namie and Asa’s clothes and their mother’s smile had been sold off in desperation. They moved to the bottom of Corellia City’s most dark and dank tower, out of the way of the sunshine, where the streets ran dirty with off-sluice of engine oil, and the men there, long-broken by the factories, brawled to pass the time.

Han witnessed the Corellian resistance blow up anything they could get their hands on, desperately angry about something she couldn’t yet understand. She watched it take her second-oldest sister, chew her up and spit her back out with missing fingers and a brain that only worked occasionally. She saw her other sisters run away along paths cut by increasingly flimsier promises, until it was just her, Namie and the ghost that although smiled like mother, smelled of a different kind of spirit.

And then, Han fucked up. She’d been so careful not to fall into the traps her sisters had, not to be too idealistic, not to be too impressionable, to see through the bullshit men whisper, that she missed the biggest trap of all, and then, before she really knew it, she lost it all.

Han arrived on Coruscant the first time a nobody on stolen papers, but now she comes a war hero, her name written across the stars for all eternity. At the space port the agent scanned her chip as an afterthought after seeing her face, and goes from starstruck and jovial to sombre in half a second when the computer makes a sorrowful beep.

“General Solo, my apologies, but this says you are officially banned from the core worlds. Excuse me, I need to get my supervisor.”

In another queue, Han watches Leia pass through the gate like it is any other door, untouchable by her past.

It gets sorted, naturally. Leia didn’t even need to call in any favours, the whole thing was seen as an embarrassment for the bureaucracy, but for Han, it was a reminder of just how much everything had changed.

* * *

Han gets official notice that her banishment from Corellia has been rescinded not long after she and Leia shack up together on Coruscant. The war is officially over, and it means that the luxury of non-essential transport is now allowed between the core worlds. It’s not a normal ping to her comm that tells of her freedom, instead, the letter comes on formal paper, thick and creamy and embossed with the seal of the Corellian Judiciary, and gives her full name, not much longer than the one she goes by now, and the complicated details of her pardon, all bureaucracy and double talk without substance. 

Han leaves it on the dining table, next to the rings of her spilled caf cup, and waits for Leia to find it. She’s still not good at the difficult conversations.

The first month, Han lived on her own on base, seeing whether she liked being a real General. At the end of the war, the resistance had more generals than any other rank, a perennial problem of any force that prizes rewarding heroism over maintaining a functional structure, but a so-called real general had asked if she wanted to give it a try. She was given a cozy house near the launch bays, where she could watch the X-Wings do their formation drills with her morning caf and an eyewatering stipend that could have solved half of her problems just a few short years ago. She read books of military tactics, went to meetings, gave her opinions, some of which were adopted. She wore a uniform so heavy with medals her shoulders ached.

It was a miracle she lasted even a month.

Han was out on the balcony when Leia got home, and she could hear the way she paused when she saw the strewn caf cups surrounding the letter. Han’s figures itched in anticipation, and she soothed them, rather than give in to impulse.

A moment later, the doors slid open, revealing Leia.

“What did you do?” Leia asks, the letter dangling from her fingers.“I can’t work out what they’re saying here”. 

“Something stupid.” Han blusters, hoping that’d be enough, but she knows that Leia speaks fluent bureaucrat, and she’s slipping into that world a little more every day, and it scares Han that without the war there won’t be anything binding them together. There are a thousand people Leia could ask to fill in the gaps of the letter, but that’s not what relationships are supposed to be about. Landeau’s voice still echoes round her head, begging her not to fuck this up.

Leia is quiet, but she doesn’t walk away, and it compels Han to tell her, to spill the stupid secret she’s kept long beyond the time anyone will care.

“Nothing heroic. My sister, Namie, had a bad boyfriend, the kind of guy who likes girls who don’t know any better. Namie had been with the resistance, she was the smart one, she built bombs for the good guys, and she had been a bit too close one too times too many, until she had bits missing and couldn’t really remember much anymore. So this guy, he’s the kind of guy who makes parents excited, he finds her somehow, and decides that she’s an easy target and so can get away with anything. He hurt her, he liked hurting her in our house, under our noses, and one day I fucked him up a little, nothing too damaging. I wanted to send a message, but his Daddy was a senator so I got the book thrown at me. Didn’t help that I already had a sheet long as my arm because I like to take stuff that doesn’t belong to me. They gave me the option of punishment or banishment, so I let them dump me on the first galactic interchange and leave me there with nothing but my clothes rather than learn the lesson they were so desperate to teach me.”

There’s a click of heels, and Leia’s in her arms, warm and soft and so unlike war it still take’s Han’s breath away.“You’ve come far” she whispers, not a lot, but it’s probably the best thing she could say. “Are you going to go back?”

Han shrugs. “For a visit maybe. I’m not really itching to go, even with this piece of paper. Still have a lot of enemies, Princess. Can’t expect you to murder all of them for me.”

She says it with cocky charm but there’s still an edge to it she can’t quite buff out, and Leia bristles, muttering a half-curse under her breath as she steps back, smoothes an invisible crease in her skirt and walks back into the apartment, leaving Han alone with her past.

Han curses herself. She promised Landeau she’d try, and she has, she’s tried so hard. She and Leia came to Coruscant, and Leia was informed that she was naturally, still the representative for the people of Alderaan, even if most of them are space dust now, but it was a core world, and so there are still half a billion people who claim Alderaani citizenship in some form or another, and they need representation. Leia’s used to standing for an idea for a while now, so she accepted, hung up her General’s stripes and put her long flowing dresses back on. She brings Han with her, and they get a lovely apartment high in one of the spires, complete with plunge pool and private hangar. Chewie’s got the Falcon for now, but Han’s fairly sure it’ll fit once she gets it back.

The future spreads out ahead of them, clean and glistening and touched with gold, but Han still feels sticky, as if she is still as covered in engine oil as she was in the slums. As she stares out across the city, she feels like of the billion souls below she stands out like a glowing beacon, a pinpoint of chaos in the organised bustle of post-war promise. She hasn’t a clue what to do with herself.

* * *

Much to Han’s annoyance, Luke gives them Threepio, and to make matters worse, Leia adopts him as her personal assistant, which means that he lives with them rather than being consigned to droid recycling like Han would prefer. This new life they’re trying to settle into is the realm of his primary programming, but the subroutines are long dusty and outdated. Leia has little practical use for him outside of calendar functions and other people’s nostalgia for their own protocol droids, and so instead of facilitating meetings or translating across dozens of languages in the senate, Threepio spends a lot of time fussing over what Han should be doing with her endless free time.

“As the spouse of a senator, Han, it really should be you who is running the Princess’ household and making important social connections, rather than just lying around leaving rude messages on Master Luke’s comm while I do everything”, he said, aggressively dusting around Han’s boots.

“It may surprise you, Threepio” Han growls, “But her highness and I are neither legally nor illegally married. She just keeps me around because I’m pretty. Does the protocol say anything about the formal role of mistresses in the life of a Senator?”

“Well, actually -”

“Thought as much. Do me a favour, don’t let me know about those things until I actually become consort.” Han says, and goes to take a bath.

The bath is boring, but it is a novel type of boring. A special kind of boring they only really have on Coruscant. Han hadn’t had a bath for years upon years before they arrived - a complete waste of time and water, both very precious in space - and lying down up to her neck in what is really more of a small pool sounds nice in books, but in reality is dull. Her mind races. The water is too hot, even though it should be impossible - there’s more brains in this bath than in the Falcon and Threepio combined. She lasts ten minutes before she gets out.

She stares at her face in the mirror until it doesn’t look like a human face anymore, before getting dressed.

* * *

Han spends a lot of time standing next to Leia at formal functions, wearing one of her four new evening outfits that, by the raised eyebrows she compulsively counts, are definitely not standard wear.

Han and Leia argued about them from the start. 

“I’m not wearing a dress” Han said, arms folded, watching Leia’s reflection in the mirror as she pins one of the last sections of her hair into place. The style is like a puzzle, and trying to make sense of it makes Han’s eyes tired. Maybe she needs glasses.

“Did I ask you to?” Leia snaps, “No. I just want you to get something new and not falling apart that actually fits you. Threepio will help. The shop will do the hard work. You just have to point at colours and tell them how tight you want it through the legs.”

“I’m not pretending to be a man either.” Han sulks after a long pause.

“I don’t want you to be a man!” Leia shouts. “You are ridiculous! Just go! Spend my money, time was that was the only thing about me you really wanted. I literally don’t care what you wear, I care that you turn up. That is it. Wear whatever you want. Just anything other than those dark trousers you’ve barely taken off since I met you”.

So, at that first dinner, Han wore a new, but completely identical pair of dark breeches, but made a concession with a new shirt that buttoned extravagantly, tiny buttons all the way around that Threepio had to do up for her, and topped it off with a short cape, because her only reference for looking fancy is Landeau, and Landeau always said that you aren’t properly dressed unless you’re wearing a cape.

She got a new haircut as well, let the droid cut it shorter at the back but leave it long at the front, so it falls in her eyes, for something other than Leia to hide behind.

Landeau saw the pictures in the gossip press, and mocked her for months, but it was worth it for the way that Leia smiled and took her hand, and let Han hold on for dear life.

That first year, Han and Leia end up being voted both best and worst dressed couple in competing fashion magazines, and Landeau does an interview claiming to be the inspiration behind the hottest trend of the season. The parties drag on, and Han gets better at being a consort. She eats the tiny food, makes the boring small talk, learns to stand on her own when Leia needs to leave to make a backroom deal. She has to get a new pair of trousers thanks to the pastries, and, this time, lets the tailor talk her into a new style and something other than black.

There’s a huge bash, the biggest of the year, for the anniversary of the signing of the Galactic Concordance. Landeau finally makes an appearance in person, surrounded by a flurry of fashion journalists who are almost as pretty as Leia, who talk earnestly about cape lengths for spring, and even Luke is there, bullied, finally, by his sister into coming out of whatever mouldering monastery he had sequestered himself to commune with the Force. 

It’s great, Han feels so happy, so genuinely happy, like someone’s lifted a weight off her shoulders. Her friends are safe, the war is over, and she’s spent a whole year being full and loved, and the world didn’t end. 

Chewie didn’t manage to make it, but Han has a great time shooting the shit with Landeau, making up outrageous stories for her gaggle of hangers-on, and watching as Luke gets utterly plastered on the best booze peacetime can brew.

It’s nearly sunrise when Leia comes to find her, and Han smiles, absolutely fucked herself and blissfully happy. There are still droids circulating with snacks, and Han’s fingers are sticky with honey.

“You look strange, what have you done with my Han?” Leia jokes, weaving their fingers together and pressing close.

“I think I’m starting to like these parties” Han says. “What did you say these pastries were called?”

“Maybe we should start thinking about planning a party of our own” Leia replies, taking a sip of her wine. “If you know what I mean?”

It’s strange, the way the squeeze of Leia’s hand suddenly feels like it’s round Han’s throat, and stranger still that, against her better instinct, she realises she likes the way it feels.

* * *

Their engagement was a formal affair, so formal in fact that Leia didn’t even ask her herself. Instead, the Grand Vizier of Alderaan makes an appointment through Threepio to come for tea, and proposes that Han Solo join the house of Organa as its First Daughter. 

“Does Leia want to adopt me or something?” Han says, mouth full of cake. Sounded alright, she thought. Lucrative. Maybe she’d get a trust fund.

“No, General Solo” the Vizier says, delicate brow furrowed beneath his heavy hairstyle, “She wants to marry you.”

The Vizier is very understanding about the crumbs in his hair, all things considered.

After he left, with Han’s response of “Oh, Her Worshipfulness will know my answer as _soon_ as she gets home” accepted as a proto engagement, Han locked herself in the laundry room and carefully and meticulously fixed the washer and dryer for several hours, until the lock finally gave under Leia’s threats and shoves.

“What’s wrong?” she says, tugging her fallen braid back up into its place. “You only fix things when you’re upset.”

“Oh you know, your highness, just commoner things, weighing on my common mind. I don’t know how you do it, all this thinking with a _crown_ on.”

“I thought you’d be happy” Leia says. “I thought we were on the same page about this. Davo said you’d accepted. I didn’t know until I got home that you...hadn’t.”

“You could have _asked_ ” Han shouted. “I didn’t even get your usual assistant! Instead I get a visit from Mr Tighter-Than-A-Protocol-Droid who asks me to become your daughter-wife, who just springs it on me! You could have said something, anything, even dropped a hint.”

“That’s not how things are done” Leia said, calmly. “It’s important that we do this properly, for the Alderaani people-”

“Twelve traitors and a load of hangers on are more important than my feelings, of course, I get it, I get it. I wouldn’t expect you to think of me first, no. Always bigger than everyone else, _Princess_ ”

“Screw you, Han! I thought you wanted to marry me?” Leia shouts, shaking so hard Han can feel it through the air, and it’s like someone plugged her into the mains.

“I want it more than anything!” Han yells, “I want you to marry me, okay? I want us to get married, Han and Leia, not Queen Organa and her trash-compactor consort! If this isn’t for us, you might as well go marry a man, and keep me on the side! Maybe that would be better for everyone involved!”

“Can you hear yourself? It may be a shock to you, _General Solo_ , but you’re a war hero. You’re exactly the kind of person a Princess of Alderaan is supposed to marry. My father was a war hero. My Grandfather was a war hero. Those twelve traitors you hold such contempt for actually _love you_ , they want to be ceremonially ruled by you. The only person who thinks this is a bad match is your crippling inferiority complex, so you can shut it and come be my wife while I still want you, okay?”

Han never knows what to do when Leia wins an argument, other than to sputter and then either fix something or go drink heavily with Chewie, who tells her she’s an idiot child, but Chewie’s somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, and this stupid apartment doesn’t have anything to fix, so Han sputters, and then closes her eyes.

When she opens them, Leia is there, small and soft and with eyes imploring, holding a traditional Corellian love-chain, and Han watches the subtle heave of Leia’s bosom as she takes a deep breath and finally, finally, asks.

* * *

They get married. 

When Han was a girl there was a show that her mother and older sister loved, where the heroine, a spunky slum tomboy, ends up through various quirks of fate, in mad, universe-defying love with galactic prince. Han remembers being wedged between them on the too-small sofa, uncomfortable and overly warm, watching the star crossed lovers marry themselves to each other in a mirrored hall with no one but their reflections for witnesses.

Han’s mother sighed heavily as the lovers embraced, taken with the romance, but Han wondered how they’d filmed it, why they couldn’t see the cameras and crew, all the support that makes the fantasy happen.

The Alderaani marriage service is simple, formal and beautiful. At the rehearsal they run through it, they say some words, join hands, mime signing a document and smile. Leia looks beautiful in red, her dress heavy and bejewelled as befitting a queen. It doesn’t count, not until there is someone important there to see it, even if the ink dries all the same, even if the courts recognised Threepio as a person. 

When Han says the words with Leia and Threepio watching, she feels it. It doesn’t matter if It’s rushed and bureaucratic, or that she stumbles on the formal Alderaani words in the vow. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t count because she looks into Leia’s eyes and takes this ceremony as the one meant for them as a couple, the matched set of damaged goods, their cracks perfectly aligned to make an imperfect whole, solid and unbreakable as long as they stay together. There’s a mirror at either end of the room, and when they clasp their hands together at the end of the fake ceremony, it’s reflected on forever.

The actual wedding is a disaster.

The ceremony was to be attended by only the Alderaani cabinet, close friends and family, but somehow this was lost, and it seemed like everyone in the galaxy who had Alderaani heritage had crammed themselves into the room. The priest had to shout to be heard over the rumble of the crowd. The room was hot, and Leia looked as red as her dress, her face beaded with sweat, hair frizzing in the humidity caused by a thousand expectant mouth-breathers. Their vows are lost in the room, and when they clasp their hands, and the crowd goes wild, someone knocks the mirror off the back wall. Han whips her head up to see their reflection splintered, a joke.

There’s no time to reflect, because the crowd is pushing, wanting to touch them, something that is traditional in Coruscant wedding ceremonies, and so security has to be called. There’s no way to get a line going, no place for them to wait, so they’re hurried out of the room. They find out soon after that Luke, Landeau and Chewie hadn’t been able to get in, and had missed the whole thing, and then the cabinet are there, argueing with Leia about redoing, rescheduling, maybe broadcasting it, doing a deal with the Galactic Wires and something inside Han’s head snaps and she just starts yelling.

It doesn’t solve anything, but they do shut up. Unfortunately, so does the crowd outside, and then all that’s being talked about is how the new Princess Consort of Alderaan is unstable, and people start talking about damage control.

Leia is furious, mostly not at Han for once, but she’s a useful proxy for the whole business, and they go to the party and press the flesh. The food is cold and there isn’t enough of it and Han just wants to go lie down, wants to recapture that feeling of the night before, when she was sure, so sure, that this was what she wanted.

They manage to get away near the end of the night, but they’re both exhausted and angry, and so Han does something she’s not done since she decided to make this work, and tries to fuck away the problems.

Her wedding shirt, made of good silk, barely whispers as it slides to the floor. Leia’s dress hits the ground with a thump, a satisfying noise that befits the way they are kissing, the urgency in their touches. Han wants noise, wants damage, wants all the carnage in her head, the alarms and the warning signs to be writ large, wants them to process this without yelling at each other, but instead it’s silent in their suite. They’re up high, the highest spire of all the dreaming spires of Coruscant, and Leia’s body is softer than ever under her hands, and Han feels herself a darker shadow looming, consuming, her real self lurking beneath the surface, only superficially soft thanks to deceptive lotions and droid diligence. 

They’re too tired to really fuck, not the way they’re used to. Maybe this is that married sex Han’s heard so much about. They fall asleep curled away from each other, back to back.

When Han wakes, Leia is gone, a note on the table in her neat handwriting apologising. An early session, a legislative crisis, doesn’t know when she’ll be back. Don’t wait up. Love you.

Threepio comes bustling out of the kitchen with a tray of caf and pastries. “Good morning your highness. Now you are officially Consort, I have taken the liberty to draw up a list those things that are now within your purview. Shall we get started?” 

While he babbles on, Han closes her eyes and imagines she and Leia alone in the endless curve of the mirror, infinite and deliriously happy, suspended in silvery carbonite away from the rest of the world.

* * *

Han nixes most of what Threepio claims is her responsibility with clear conscience, as a lot of what being a Princess Consort of Alderaan involves requires Alderaan to not be a particularly tragic brand of space debris. She’s not well educated, so feels a fraud speaking about Alderaan’s academic history, and natural beauty has always been lost on her. She does become patron of a vast number of charities once she realises it doesn’t require doing much other than eating pastries a couple of times a year. Most of them are content for her to do that, to be a figurehead, but there are a few she really connects with. She falls in love with the ladies at the Droid Reclaimworks, and there are some very flattering pictures taken of her arms deep in a droid, one of which she finds Leia keeps on her desk at the senate. It’s all for a good cause, she tells herself. Best to keep busy.

And then there are the war orphans.

The Senate has been talking endlessly about the war orphans since the day the war ended, but until Han went to the orphanage herself, she didn’t realise just how many of them there were. To start with, the charities just showed her books, cherubic pictures of little boys and girls blurring together, endless, each one sad, but in a disconnected way. 

She insists on being brought to the orphanage that holds the Alderaani children. She is supposed to represent them now, these are her subjects. She always was uncomfortable around children, awkward and unsure about what to say to them, but they cannot be worse than the simpering Alderaanians she has to deal with, the kind who treated her with contempt until she got married, and now can’t get enough of her. No kid could be worse than that.

The orphanage is a long, low building on the outskirts of Coruscant’s second city, purposefully built among the rolling hills to try and give at least some nod to Alderaan’s famous natural beauty.

The children line up to greet her, all wide eyed at meeting a real-life princess, even one only by marriage. Han shakes each of their tiny hands, getting tinier as she moves down the line from the oldest children to the youngest, who are totally overwhelmed by the whole thing.

Han didn’t have a good childhood, but she never realised how lucky she was until that moment, shaking the hand of a four year old with nothing at all. She at least had a home and a homeworld, a place to belong, and she had her sisters, who protected her while Ma worked to bring in enough money to keep a roof over their heads. 

The guardians bring her to the baby room, and Han is appalled by the rows upon rows of cribs, a couple of dozen babies lined up like they’re sitting an exam on cuteness. 

The guardian sees her face, and pipes up. “These are the lucky ones. They’ll get adopted quickly. Babies always do.”

Han leaves, it’s all a little too much, but she promises to bring Leia next time. She bugs her, doesn’t shut up until Leia clears an afternoon in her schedule and they come back the next week, and Han looks on, pleased, as the kids thrill to having a visit from their Queen.

Leia isn’t thrilled to visit the baby room. She is hesitant, unsure if she is ready, and so Han leaves her and Threepio outside, and goes in by herself.

She’s wandering the narrow little paths between the cribs, the children playing carefully with blocks, their droid-carers playing soft music to soothe them, when she is distracted by the wailing of the child next to her.

Han bends down, and picks up the little black haired boy. He’s heavier than she expected, and he waves his fat little arms around like weapons as he bawls. She feels a tug in her gut, the tug of kinship, and wants to start crying herself. He’s a sweetheart, all tangled curls and free-flowing snot, and he wants his Mama something fierce. 

Leia and Threepio catch up with them then, and Leia strokes the little boy’s curls pensively, before gasping at the name on his cot.

“This is Shara’s boy” she says. “Oh god, Han, I didn’t realise…Oh, hello Poe, do you remember me?”

Han doesn’t remember Shara, not really. She remembers a pregnant pilot back when they were preparing for the run on the death star, but she was just wallpaper to Han at the time. 

He’s still bawling, so Han bounces Poe on her hip, wipes his face with her shirt cuff, and coos the kind of talk she had only ever said to the Falcon on bad days. And it works, his face splits into a grin, and when Han looks up, she sees Leia watching her like a hawk, and the nod they exchange says a whole contract’s worth of words.

Poe comes home with them and their lives change again. Han is surprised at how well she adapts, for all she called the Falcon her baby, it turns out a barely space worthy bucket of screws was a pretty good training course for a real miniature human. She’s used to no sleep, to keeping her head under pressure, and has always been good at solving problems based on random noises. Leia is the one who struggles, her white dresses impractical in the path of Poe, a highly-efficient snot generator, and she gets frustrated that she doesn’t understand his needs.

Han doesn’t realise that Leia had even been looking for his parents until she drops into dinnertime conversation that she found them, and that Poe’s grandfather would be there the day after next to pick him up. She sounds relieved, and Han swallows down an argument she isn’t ready to have, and continues to feed pureed vegetables to Poe as if this is normal, like she hadn’t made room for him in her heart.

It’s been barely over a week, just nine days since he came into their lives, and Han knows she shouldn’t feel like this. It’s a dangerous feeling, the kind of thing she always protected herself from, the cavernous yearning for something she cannot have.

She thought, after Leia became hers, that she was immune to this level of wanting.

A day or so later, they’re standing in the hall of the Galactic Senate, Poe being fussed over by the stroller-droid, as a kindly looking older man with a weathered face comes over to them. He bows, and Han sees the softness of the back of his neck and thinks unkind thoughts.

“Your majesties, I am so grateful, you cannot understand. My son and his wife, they had resigned themselves that he had been lost, we never thought he might be in an Alderaani orphanage and then we hear that you have him, and he’s safe. Shara wanted to come herself, but I was already so close to Coruscant, it made no sense for Poe to have to wait any longer than he had to to be reunited with his family.”

He bends over, and Poe recognises something, some deep connection on a genetic level, and raises his arms for his Grandpa, and Han forces herself to smile.

That night, in the silence of their home, they’re lying in bed with the windows open. It’s hot, but there’s breeze up here, and the way the curtains billow is dramatic enough to suit Han’s mood. It’s too hot to do much more than hold hands, so that’s all they do.

“I miss him”, Han says. “I never thought...it’s too quiet. Maybe we should ask around if any other children might need a home? We never talked about the future of the House of Organa.”

Leia’s quiet, so quiet Han thinks she’s fallen asleep, until she speaks. 

“We could have our own, you know.”

“Sure, we could do that.” Han muses. “Who would you want as a donor? Grand Vizier Adanis has pretty good cheekbones.”

Leia’s voice is soft and dreamlike. “No, I mean we, you and I, could have a baby. If you wanted.”

Han laughs. “Now, Princess, I may be a Corellian guttersnipe, but even I know where babies come from.”

Leia shrugs. “It’s a fairly new technique, and it can only make girls, but it works.” She rolls over. “I know I shouldn’t, there are so many orphans, I was an orphan. I loved my parents, and now I know what I know about my...genetic father...I probably shouldn’t pass on my genes…”

“But you want to” Han says, slowly, her mouth dry.

“I do. I want to have our baby, Han. It isn’t logical, or rational, or the best thing to do. It wouldn’t be the best PR for the recovery. But I want the whole package. We can adopt a war orphan after, we can adopt all the war orphans if you want, but having Poe here made me want it even more.”

Han squeezes her hand, and feels the world around her change.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Devon Sproule's White Kite at Georgetown Green. The wedding ceremony was inspired by The Pharaohs by Neko Case.
> 
> Come hang with me on tumblr where I am always up for screaming about Lesbian Han Solo: [cicaklah.tumblr.com](http://cicaklah.tumblr.com). I'm also on twitter, @chicketychak.


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